Can Interactive Fiction Be More Engaging Than Realistic Video Games?

It doesn’t seem possible for something text-based to stand up to games made by AAA studios, but research suggests otherwise.

Photo Courtesy of Thomas Bethge on Adobe Stock

In my quest to gain a comprehensive understanding of current trends, tools, and research related to interactive fiction, I stumbled across a peer-reviewed article that really grabbed my attention. The abstract asked a question that seemed outlandish—can simple, text-based interactive fiction (IF) actually be more engaging to its audience than a polished, super realistic, HD video game?

It might sound like a long shot, but to an IF enthusiast like me, I had to keep reading. The article in question is ‘Doing there’ vs. ‘being there’: performing presence in interactive fiction. It was written by a University of Utah researcher named Alf Seegert. The article was published in
Journal of Gaming & Virtual Worlds’ January 2009 issue. It’s worth noting that this was the journal’s first issue, so it doesn’t have a remarkably long publishing history.

Research implies that making your audience take action has more power to influence their sense of presence than really realistic…